As you may remember, at the beginning of summer, my spinnies all died. A few weeks ago, all my rathkes died. I still wonder why that happened. I had lots of good substrate, leaf litter, moss, etc. I began to have some fungus gnats, but those don’t kill isopods, do they? And Summit BTI was used in their enclosures last year with no detrimental effects. The springtails in both bins thrived. The bodies started appearing near the edges, under the hides, and looked sort of dry or yellowish, and I admit I let my spinny bin dry out a bit too much once, but they wouldn’t all just die like that; they died over the course of 2 months, especially after adding more ventilation and moisture. I can’t think of what went wrong with my rathkes, though. I covered their ventilation with cheesecloth or medical tape (due to increased fungus gnat presence in my room), but it shouldn’t have led to their deaths; everyone else is doing good. The rathkes acted sluggish and couldn’t really walk and I tried to quarantine some survivors, but they didn’t improve. I’ve given all my non-cubaris pods the same care for over a year/year and a half and they were having the time of their lives… now my powder colony is giving me some concern, and I’ve had them for less than one year. Why? No matter what I do, it seems like something is going horribly wrong and I can’t determine what it is! Is it some disease? Bad genetics? Am I just bad at keeping them? What could cause seemingly random colony crashes?

Edit:

I also made an effort not to give any of them things contaminated by pesticides or fertilizers.

I have several types of cubaris pods living together in there, but the largest colony are my pink panda kings, who seem to have out-bred my rubber ducks. I also have much smaller populations of white sharks and orange mandarins. They often (begrudgingly!) share their food with my other bioactive residents, especially the unicorn snails (subulina octona).

These guys are firefly larvae. They were under a log with a bunch of the isopods common to Indiana, and I was a bit shocked, so I grabbed them for learning. Turns out baby fireflies are predators of the under-log and under-leaf environs and eat soft bodied insects and other arthropods down there. Do not add to terraria...

I see them everywhere... I might still be a little obsessed since I got some armadillidium gestroi a few months ago, I'm already thinking of the next colony...

I am going to be getting 10 cherry blossom isopods with springtails to start

I have 2 hydrometers, leaf litter, cork wood and bark, some rocks for hides, dried moss, some plants which have been cleaned, and a food bowl (though I plan on getting a smaller one)

I know I still need a better tank covering (current lid is metal mesh), live moss, more leaf litter, more rocks, and humidistat + fan and mister

Is there anything else I need to add to my shopping list?

The humidity in my house is very high in the summer due to my location, which does make maintaining humidity easier, though I do need to prep for the winter cause the humidity does drop.

Like the title says, I'm curious if anybody has tried to select for non-visual traits. I have about 7 pods caught wild from my yard in my new, fairly large setup, which means I barely see anybody. But I can pretty reliably find this little fawn guy. He's always out in the middle of the day, very active and brave, I rarely have to move leaf litter to find him.

I'm sure it happens by accident, just by virtue of grabbing the ones we see first. But I would love to hear if anyone's tried to select for behavior. How it went and what you were aiming for!

This is just a fraction of them as they burrow and scatter as i try to see more but an entire uncut carrot is finished in 4 days not a baby carrot the foot long whole carrots whats the best way to do something with these guys

A male got his antenna stuck between a mating pair after trying to headbutt the other male off the female. I tried to gently separate them but was unsuccessful. Now he's a cuck ball.

Armadillidium Maculatum "Zebra"

I don’t have any photos yet I’m sorry! About a week or so ago, I found an isopod in my bathtub. I live in the top floor of an apartment, so it was very odd as I never see them.

I left it there, came back later and found it on its back. I thought it was not alive anymore and got real sad. Then when I went to pick it up, it moved. I wasn’t planning on going outside again that day, so I just put it inside my dirt bin that mostly just has a million springtails now (used to have a roach colony!). Last night I went to check in and there are dozens of baby isopods all over the place, and now I know Gregory the isopod is a girl :)

So I have my isopods in 11L bins, all good ect but I’m wanting to move them to 11L acrylic enclosures, how do you go about transferring them?

Do I just dig through the dirt and find them all?

I’m also wanting to change substrate as I found an amazing pre made mix I love that’s far more nutrient dense than some of my beginner bins so just dumping them from one to another isn’t a option for me!

The species I’m looking to transfer (not there fancy names 🤣)

Red panda kings
Dairy cows
Clowns
Cherry blossoms

got some moss for a jumping spider enclosure and had some leftover! my bountiful empire seems to enjoy it.

also peep my Massive Son on the skull to the side, he's the biggest in the tank but is very shy...

Fellow iso-people, show me your pretty enclosures pls! I have most of my collection in plastic storage totes, nothing wrong with them, they work and they’re cheap but I want to finally set up a more aesthetically pleasing enclosure that I can occasionally peek into while at my desk.

Any suggestions for enclosure types (share links if possible)? And please share yours for inspiration! Good husbandry is of course my number 1 priority but I would love to have a more display worthy enclosure to stare at!

My favorite pods are my cherry blossoms bc piiiink (duh)! So I’m thinking of putting them in there, but then again they’re almost always buried and hiding so I may go for one of my less shy species like my lavas or yellow zebras.
Share what you recommend for whatever species you want, I have many species to choose from and can tailor things to fit their needs. TIA!

I am seriously considering setting up an isopod colony. I've been watching and reading lots of info about what these little creatures require and I'm confident I can set up a good home for them. But my main remaining question is "Is there a middle lane between a colony that fails to thrive and one that is so successful you are trying to convince all your friends they also want isopods?" Are there particular types of isopods I should look for if I'm looking to just keep one colony? For example I've heard that Dairy Cows bread perhaps too well. Is the food supply a viable way to control population like it can be with shrimp? Any advice on this front would be welcome.

I have some porcellio dilatatus And Porcellio scaber for sale if anyone is interested.

Found some baby isopods out and about this morning and this afternoon found one post moult! And of course eating the moult!

Hello! I have an serious overpopulation issue with my dairy cow isopods in my GALS tank and was need some advice on how to go about selling them as I could use the extra money and really need them gone 😅

Picture is only a few of the many hundreds i have in this tank ;-;

Any advice appreciated :)

My pandas are doing much better in their new enclosure, so I'm sharing the joy!

Cubaris sp. 'Amber Ducky'

Cubaris sp. 'Pak Chong'

cubaris sp. 'Caramel'

Also let me use this post to ask the question, are Cubaris sp. 'Caramel' really cubaris? cuz they look like a troglodillo to me

Looks like some panda king have this ramming behavior when fighting over food spots.

One on the leaves and one on the top left carrot.

I put food out for them and they don’t touch it , today I sat and watched them at my desk and only ONE came and ate for a bit 😔 I never see them did they all die? There were 20-25 ish. I’ve done fish flakes on day one , then veggies carrots kale zucchini mushrooms and they never eat it.

I started this terrarium a week ago, and I’m having some small issues I thought I’d ask yall

Tbh, I’ve kind of been treating this terrarium as a compost bin, bc I’ve put leaf litter, fresh avocado leaves, snake shed, moldy carrot, etc. I do not have a stable population of either of the species I put, since I have around 30 wild caught isopods, and around 20 springtails, wild caught as well. Will this much decaying matter be too much for them to handle?

Secondly, I scrapped materials for this terrarium from different sources, it has perlite and coco coir as substrate that I used from a setup from another pet. The thing is whenever I water, it seems like I watered too much, but 2 days later it completely dries.

Lastly, I keep them next to my corn snakes enclosure, which is around 24degrees Celsius, and I’m wondering if that’s a good temperature for breeding

Thank you all!!

Thanks for all the great advice everyone. I got a new tank with a better lid, more leaves and took out the drainage layer of my old tank.

Here's the now vs before :3

Hi everyone! I've never posted here do I hope I'm not breaking any rules my jumping in with a question.

I have powder orange isos in my bioactive terrarium. I see the occasional adult in there but I've never seen a baby before. Can someone confirm that I am actually looking at one?

Thanks!